Postmodernism and Deconstructionism

1. Postmodernism and Deconstructionism

2. Super Frog Saves Tokyo • Postmodernism and Deconstructionism reviewed

3. Postmodernism Review • post-modernism associated with World War II • took the splintered views of modernism and destroyed them entirely, • stresses absences, contradictions, sub-texts, and inability of language

4. WWPD (What would postmodernists do?) • Discover postmodern themes, tendencies and attitudes in literature • Foreground “disappearance of the real”, for example, in the mixing of genres • Foreground “intertextual elements” such as parody, pastiche, and allusion • Foreground irony • Foreground ‘narcissism of narrative’, when narratives focus on their own construction • Challenge distinction between high and low culture

5. Deconstructionism Review • centers around the belief that much of contemporary society and definitions are a product of cultural construction. • literature should “deconstruct” back to its basis.  • critiques everything found in the overt text, and questions the ability of language to reflect with any accuracy what an author might be trying to say.  • novels are puzzles to be decoded. 

6. WWDD (What would deconstructionsits do?) • ‘Read text against itself’ to expose the underlying assumptions • Fix upon the surface features of words---similarities in sound, root meanings, etc. so these become crucial to overall meaning • Seek to reveal disunity of text • Analyze individual passages so intensely that ‘language explodes into multiplicities of meaning’ • Look for shifts or breaks in the text as evidence of what is glossed over or silenced by the text. These discontinuities are known as ‘fault lines’

7. For final essay: • Be sure to apply one of the literary lenses to Poisonwood Bible